Tyler Chatwood named among many prominent players in major foreign substance exposé

[TwistedLogic]

Sports Illustrated today released an incredibly damning exposé using first hand confessions and text message receipts to name several prominent players and personalities in baseball in the "sticky substance" scandal.

 

You can read the full article here: https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/06/14/sticky-stuff-bubba-harkins-speaking-out-daily-cover[/url]

 

I've included some relevant snippets below.

 

 

Gerrit Cole:

 

 

 

Troy Percival:

 

 

 

Justin Verlander:

 

 

 

Joba Chamberlain and Corey Kluber

 

 

 

Max Scherzer and Edwin Jackson:

 

 

 

Tyler Chatwood:

 

 

 

Adam Wainwright:

 

 

 

Andrew Bailey:

 

[Deadpool]

Lot of "good" pitchers 'bout to get REALLY bad.

[King]

Anyone think Chatwoods recent struggles with control have been because he stopped using foreign substances

[Grant77]

Anyone think Chatwoods recent struggles with control have been because he stopped using foreign substances

 

It's a distinct possibility. We've seen it with other pitchers.

[BTS]

Imagine how bad Edwin Jackson would have been without cheating.

[AdamGreenwood]

Imagine how bad Edwin Jackson would have been without cheating.

 

The pitching equivalent of a Gregg Zaun sans steroids.

[Laika]

Was Tyler Chatwood only good this year because he was cheating?

 

I wasn't sure where to see spin rates for select periods so I pulled up some games in savant.

 

Chatwood is a bit tricky because he throws mostly fastball variants and not a lot of four seamers. I decided to look only at cutters, since it is a spin reliant pitch.

 

Date ---- Range CT spin

 

04-01 ---- 2826 to 2999

04-03 ---- 2690 to 2876

04-05 ---- 2798 to 2995

04-23 ---- 2662 to 2886

04-27 ---- 2517 to 2932

 

05-23 ---- 2837 to 2981 (struggles begin, two BB and 4 ER)

05-25 ---- 2689 to 2983

05-29 ---- 2549 to 2977

06-04 ---- 2591 to 2787

06-09 ---- 2679 to 2793

06-11 ---- 2557 to 2657 (only threw two)

 

Results: Inconclusive. Top end and perhaps lower end of CT spin rates appear down in last few games, but the possible decrease in CT spin does not coincide with the beginning of his struggles. Perhaps abandoning the sticky stuff has made a normal blip into something worse?

 

Limitations: Did not look at average spin in each game, or for each period, because lazy.

Did not look at other pitches. He throws other pitches. But he barely throws the CB and 4S and the SI is typically not a spin-reliant pitch. Throws the CT 38.2% of the time and the SI 47.4%. Someone else could look at the other pitches. Maybe you'd see a decrease in SI spin even if he was just using the sticky stuff for command, or maybe he is weird and tries to spin the SI.

 

Next Steps: Look at same data in future games.

Someone else might want to look at a bigger sample, his other pitches, and/or his average spin rates per game or per a period.

[Jays24]

Explains how he went from one of our best bullpen arms to utterly useless lol

[Brownie19]

Explains how he went from one of our best bullpen arms to utterly useless lol

 

It does?